HuffPo New York has commentary from columnists such as Fox News Channel’s Ellis Henican and former Seinfeld scribe Peter Mehlman, news items–both aggregated and original–such as the the Senatorial nonsense going on up in Albany, links to local blogs and newspapers, and even local weather in the top right corner.

The site, currently in beta, also has a video player, though it appears to play right now are ads. (I guess they’re not exactly pre-rolls if they don’t precede anything. Are we to just call them “rolls”?)

We got to see Huffington speak at the Mirror Awards lunch a few weeks ago, when B&C performed its annual ritual of losing the award to the New York Times. Huffington said she’s not out to kill traditional media, but to reinvent it.

“Are people going to keep trying to reinvent the past, or are they charting the future?” she said. “I stopped believing that we can jump in the way-back machine. If you embrace the future, you can find business models and embrace the business models.”

Huffington said pay models work if the content is specialized. Otherwise, she says, “Let people see it, share it, comment on it.”